Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-11-26
OLD MEXICO.
THE CUISINE As INDICATING A
NATIONS CIVILIZATION.
Mexican Rousewifery, and How a
Fair Sonora Distinguished Her
self as q Dulce-Maker.

CITY OF MEXICO, November Is, 1887.
1t is an unquestionable fact that the
cuisine is fair criterion of the civil
ization Of any nation, and that of Mexico
is as unique as the dress and manners of
her people. The climate, no doubt, as
we'll as the Moorish architecture of the
houses, has much to do about it. In this
hot country, and In these windowless
kitchens, steady fires are out of the ques-
ton, did not the scarcity and high price of
fuel prevent where trees do not abound
nor coal-miners exist. When gnarled and
crooked sticks are bought by weight-at
the rate OF a cent and u half per pound
and coal, brought from a great distance, is
SIG to $40 per ton, naturally economy in
fuel is prime consideration.
A typical Mexican kitchen has neither
stove, table, chair nor cupboard clean
swept clay floor, an adobe shelf against the
wall and few hooks and pegs answering
every purpose. In the houses Of the rich
AN ADOBE RANGE
Is built into the wall, which is really a
long, narrow box, made of sun-balled clay
and partitioned off into little compart-
ments, within each Of which handful of
charcoal may be consumed.
The middle classes use big clay jar or
pot in lieu of a range, in which charcoal is
also burned; while the poor have call out
doors" for a kitchen, and build their tiny
fire of sticks wherever it is most convenient
The cooking utensils are seldom of iron,
because here that metal is very scarce and
dear; but earthern pots are almost uni
versally used. instead of the kettles and
frying-pans to which Northern housekeep-
ers are accustomed. 1t seems incredible
that dinner of several courses can be pre-
pared over a charcoal pot not much larger
than peck measure, the various edibles
all cooked in smaller pots set within it.
Let us observe some of the dishes. Per-
haps the most important part of the menu
is the tortilla, or oatmeal pancake, the
Mexican "staff of life" and Staple article
of food. 1t is made of common field corn,
soaked in lime-water, and then crushed
INTO paste on a stone metate with a stone
roller. The women of the household go
through the entire laborious process as
many times every day as there are meals
to be eaten, kneeling upon the floor behind
the low metate. The paste is then mixed
with little water, with no salt or Soda
and small masses of it are fattened into
cakes, much like English scenes or Yankee
buckwheats, spatted into shape between
the hands, and baked Immediately upon a
fiat stone, or piece of iron or tin, over the
fire. Throughout all Mexico tortillas
have been in use from the earliest times,
with no change in the manner of making
them, except that for the noble Aztecs in
Montezuma's time the leaves of various
medicinal plants were kneaded in with the
dough.
THEN THERE Is PUCHARo,
Or the boiled conglomeration that always
follows the soup, consisting of mutton, beef,
bacon, fowls, sausage, garbdnsoS "a large
white beam, small gourds, squash, greens,
pears, apples, and every other seed, root
and vegetable known to man, all boiled to-
gether, piece of each piled upon your
plate, and sauce of herbs, tomatoes and
red-hot chill poured over it. At every
Mexican dinner, 800 days in the year, the
third course is invariably pucharo, after
caldo (broth), and the stew of rice, vermi-
cell or macaroni, mixed with tomatoes,
cheese or sour milk.
There is mole, which means any kind of
fish, flesh or fowl, with sauce of roasted
chili-peppers, which turns the whole thing
to deep, dark red, and is fiery enough to
draw tears from the eyes Of craven i'm
age.
There is the tamale, innocent enough in
its looks to tempt baby, but so hot with
chill within that ones throat needs to be
triple-plated with tin. 1t is made of red
peppers, tomatoes and onions, with chopped
meat, rolled up in tortilla dough and put
inside corn husk. They are then boiled,
or steamed in the husk, which fiavors
them through and throug really
they are not bad, when ones inner man !"
becomes hardened to the chill.
Another delicacy is known as eaehlades
made of tortilla dough rolled over an
unguessable conunsrum of chopped
chicken, red peppers, green tomatoes, gar
lie, raisins and heaven knows what These
are also inclosed in corn husks and boiled,
and are very good eating if one is not too
particular as to the component parts of
the conundrm and the dirt it may incl
dentally contain.
There are also boiled nopals, or fruit of
the "prickly pear" species of cacti ba-
nanas fried in lard, goats milk cheese to
be eaten with honey; and last, but by no
means least,
FREJoLEs, OR RED BEANS,
Which everybody in Mexico eats at least
three times day, and which Immediately
precede the dessert at every well regu-
lated dinner. They are first parboiled in
water, after which the cook takes the stew
lng.jar, pours out the water, throws the
beans into the air and catches them again
in the jar, keeping up the operation until
they are quite cold; when they are mixed
with chill and fried in fat.
As to the messes eaten by the Indians, |
cannot speak from experimental knowl-
edge, for even that journalistic feryor
which will lead the wandering scribe to
the topmost icy peaks of sky-piercing
mountains, and to the lowest depths Of
subterranean caverns, fails utterly when it
comes to eating snails, pounded flies, dried
grasshoppers, fish intestines, musquitoes'
eggs, etc.
But it must be remembered that the
upper classes are exceedingly dainty in
their diet and look upon the average
American as a barbarian of the first water,
because he can make a meal without wine
and divide his dinner into only two
courses Not only the aristocrats, but all
Mexicans with any pretensions TO social
standing, require that every dish, if it be
but spoonful of peas, be served as a sep
arate course, for which clean plates must
be provided, making the most common
place dinner long and ceremonious affair.
Wine is always served with the substan-
tials and coffee and cigarettes sitter dessert.
The Mexicans have no fondress for sour
things therefore vinegar, pickles, etc,
ind no place here; but everybody has a
well-dereloped sugar tooth, and dulcics
(sweetmeats) are il great demand. There
Is no end 20 the varieties of duloe which a
Mexican housewife will compound, from
simple tafiy to the most elaborate pre-
served or candied fruits, sauces, iellies and
marmalades. Canning is unknown here,
and is not needed in summer country.
where fruits are perennial. L have eaten
ROSES PRESERVED ENTIRE.
Eaen delicate sugar-sosted leaf intsct
upon the stem, making conserve
fit for fairy; and everybody knows thai
preserved rose-leayes, like guava jelly, are
common in tropical lardea.
Since stoves are comparatively unknown,
and, therefore, ovens are aon eSt-except
those ponderous affairs of adobe used by